With the next presidential election still three-and-a-half years away, NBC reports Democrats in “a frenzy” over Hillary Clinton’s potential candidacy, while Maureen Dowd and Chris Matthews see her victory as inevitable.

This obsessive speculation so early in the cycle is unprecedented: at the start of second terms for George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, press and public focused on the re-elected president’s plans, not the prospects of his possible successor. Hillary-mania actually reflects the weakness of Obama, not the strength of Clinton: Democrats are so disappointed in the incumbent’s second term initiatives that they prefer fantasizing about future progress under a more dynamic, unifying leader. When day dreams about a new president generate more excitement in his own party than the current leader’s efforts to restrict guns and hike taxes, it indicates a term that’s already failed before it’s barely begun.